LAX96LA192 · Cessna 172P
Cessna 172P · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Reno Tahoe International Airport (RNO) to 4SD · Reno, NV
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX96LA192
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Cessna 172P
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N5394K
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Reno Tahoe International Airport (RNO), Reno, NVTo 4SD · Reno, NV
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Loss of control in flight
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Stall/mush
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Airspeed(vref), not maintained
- Pilot in command › Proper glidepath, not followed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot thought his aircraft was too high as he turned final, but after lowering additional flaps he allowed the aircraft to become too low and slow. When he saw the VASI lights indications he thought that the aircraft might land short. He applied 'some' power but it did not stop the aircraft from sinking. He responded by increasing back pressure in an attempt to increase his glide. He heard the stall warning horn and felt the stall buffet, but did not any more power because he thought that once the aircraft entered ground effect it would reach the runway. The aircraft stalled, landing hard short of the runway threshold. The aircraft bounced and then struck the raised threshold lip with its right main gear. It settled back on runway 26 and then slid to a stop off the right side. The approach was flown over rising terrain which can give a pilot the illusion that the aircraft is at a higher altitude. If not recognized, this illusion may induce him to maintain a higher pitch attitude resulting in a lower airspeed and an increased rate of descent during an approach.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to obtain and maintain flying speed and a proper glide path, which resulted in an inadvertent stall during a visual approach. An increased altitude illusion created by rising terrain under the final approach course was a factor.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX96LA192
- Event ID
- 20001208X05807
- Case number
- LAX96LA192
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 39ae571e6691e8191d5cd938e82aedbf2dda5a1dd2728d582dc145ab50eb3975; retrieved 2026-09-22T22:31:31.426Z.